


Simple Tastes

by snowshus



Category: X-Force (Comics)
Genre: 5 Things, Introspection, M/M, adjusting to a new world, and mojoworld, food as more than food, mentions of gringrave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:14:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25495198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowshus/pseuds/snowshus
Summary: Five flavors that Julio shares with Shatterstar
Relationships: Julio Richter/Shatterstar
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37
Collections: Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020





	1. Spicy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tangerine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tangerine/gifts).



The team usually ate dinner outside. It had started as a necessity. When they had first arrived at Camp Verde (before they’d been able to get generators or the graymalkin and it’s bunkers) none of the houses had working kitchens. They’d cleaned up a charcoal grill James had remembered one of his neighbors having and heated the cans of beans and spam stored in the jet. In Mojoworld food had been tasteless. At least the food provided to him was. Its sole purpose was to keep the body going in optimal condition. Cable had the same mentality. Food at their compound in the mountains had been only marginally better than the food he’d been provided by the Cadre Alliance. While the others might have had personal snacks, they had not dained to share with Shatterstar. He probably wouldn’t have eaten the nutritionless junk food they’d had anyways. The cans of beans and spam and peaches were better than anything else he’d eaten in his life. 

It didn’t take long before they’d blown through most of the rations stored in their jet. Sam and James made the first supply run. James knew the area well enough and Sam was theoretically responsible. They’d returned from Phoenix with more cans. Tabby and Terry took the next run and well they too came back with more of the same cans they also brought with them bread and dried preserves and something called peanut butter and jelly that they stuck between two slices of bread. It was sweet and chewy and made his teeth feel stuck together. 

Tabby laughed at him the first time he ate one, his lips smacking together as he tried to get the cloying feeling to go away. There was a smear of red jelly across her cheek from her own sandwich and Sam pulled her into his lap and licked at it while she squealed and laughed. Julio smiled slightly watching them. There was a smear of jelly on the corner of his mouth. Perhaps he felt Shatterstar watching him because he glanced over and then dropped his eyes, rubbing the back of his hand over his mouth self-consciously.

They fixed-up a generator and got some refrigeration finally. Hamburgers became a staple of their evening meals, frozen discs of meat between two slices of bread that tasted better than anything else they had eaten, except maybe the canned peaches. 

Then one day Julio and Roberto come back from Phoenix with bags of unfamiliar foods. 

“We were tired of you shitty gringa food,” Julio said, unpacking a bag full of little jars of powders. 

Roberto made a chicken that night. It had been sweet and burning and tasted slightly of ashes and smoke-flavor layered on flavor. It engaged all the senses. Shatterstar had not realized such things were possible with food. 

Meals at Camp Verde had greatly improved after that. It was like they all suddenly realized they didn’t have to live on canned goods and bland rations. They had a home. They didn’t need food that could be packed away quickly with a guarantee it wouldn’t be bad by the time they could eat again. They had a refrigerator and a place they would always return too. Vegetables and fruits and a thousand kinds of meat with spices Shatterstar had never imagined slowly filled their kitchen. But even as they finally got the oven and stove to work the tradition of eating outside remained.

Shatterstar did not participate much in the creation of the meals, he had nothing of value to add. 

On Julio’s nights to make dinner Shatterstar would sit across from him and watch. Though it was early evening the sun in Arizona was still bright and high in the sky. It turned the exposed skin of Julio’s arms to gold. Shatterstar did not follow that thought to its natural conclusion. It was not that Shatterstar was unaware of mechanisms of desire or that he did not recognize them in himself. He simply no longer needed such attachments. Back when he’d been in the arena everything of Shatterstar had existed solely to provide entertainment. His relationship with Gringrave had been a performance, an act designed to help them survive. Every kiss they had shared at the end of battle had served that purpose first and any actual relief or care was an accidental liability. Nothing he’d felt back then was without artifice. Every joyous reunion, every tearful goodbye was manufactured - either by his masters or himself - for the benefit of the audience. They had always enjoyed a love story mixed in with the carnage. 

He was free now to feel nothing. 

Still, he enjoyed Julio’s company. 

“What are you making?” he asked, adding the squares of onion Julio had told him to chop to the bowl of chopped tomatoes. 

“It’s pico de gallo, it’s for the chicken.” Julio pointed at the grill where several large pieces of meat were sizzling. He dumped the rest of the tomato cubes he’d been cutting into the bowl, sweeping the juices on top and began chopping a slim green pepper. 

“You know, I don’t think I know what kind of food you like?”

The slices he made were uneven. Sam’s fruits and vegetables were always sliced into perfectly even blocks and Shatterstar had tried to emulate that. Julio’s varied from thick to very thin without obvious cause. 

“I don’t know enough about Earth food to know what I like.”

“Well what flavors have you liked so far, sweet or spicy or salty?” Julio pressed.

Shatterstar thought about it for a few moments, about all the food the group has made: Sam’s corn with its bright sugary pop and James’ breads with the nuts. He wasn’t sure which flavor was which exactly, though he is beginning to link the words and tastes. “I like the food you usually make. The kind that makes my lips feel funny. It is a strange sensation but I enjoy it greatly.” 

Julio grinned, “I knew you had good taste, that’s spicy food. Here, try this.” He held up a small piece of the pepper he’d been slicing, pressing it against Shatterstar’s lips. Shatterstar opened his mouth. The fruit was cool and sweet at first and quickly the burning followed spreading through his mouth lingering even though the sliver of green fruit was gone. His lips still tingled where Julio’s fingers had touched them. 

“Too much? Do you need something to drink?” Julio asked, biting his lip.

“No. I like it.” 


	2. Salty

Domino wished to teach Shatterstar about Culture. The way she said it makes it sound like it was different from the sort of culture Julio taught him. She claimed all the TV was a bad influence on his education. Shatterstar liked the TV but he allowed perhaps it left some holes in his understanding of the world. She took him with her when the American Ballet Theatre opened. They had moved to New York by then and it was not far away. There was a lot of culture in New York-both the kind she spoke of and the kind he was learning from Julio.

Being in an audience for the first time was strange. Most of the art of storytelling is new and strange on Earth. In Mojoworld the story was always a surprise. Who would win? Who would die? These questions were unknown because no one knew until the fight ended. The closest he can find to what he is familiar with is wrestling or sports. The wrestling was the sort of storytelling he was used to but Julio had assured him it was staged and no one got hurt. Sports were the only entertainment with no known outcome but there was no narrative in them, just strange rituals which if performed more times by one side or the other meant a win. 

He did not know what a Ballet might be like and standing among the wealth he did not have a context to understand he felt, for a moment, like a traitor. _He was in an audience._ He had come here to view the exploitation of people’s bodies live and in front of him. This was everything he was working to end. This was everything he had fought against.

Then it started. 

It was a story. It was as carefully planned and practiced and fake as anything on the television. It was like wrestling, but harder to follow. The story was funny. Shatterstar could tell because the people around them were smiling and chuckling lightly at parts. He doesn’t quite understand it though. Domino explained the plot to him during the intermission. It was about a boy who fell in love with a doll and the real girl who saved him from his foolishness. The doll spent the first half sitting in a chair high above the stage. She was unmoved by the boy or the girl or anyone else’s attempts to reach her. No matter how the townspeople implored her, she didn't come down from her spot above the stage, she could not. She wasn’t made like they were. She was just a doll to be wound up when her master wanted and she could only move the way he’d designed. 

By the end of the show the boy had married the real girl and the doll was left a lifeless heap on the floor of the dollmaker's house.

Julio always gravitated to the wolf-girl when they must work with the other teams. Even if the meeting was short he always found her. He smiled at her, and leaned towards her the way James leaned towards Terry. Like she was the sun and he grew only in her direction. 

It is right. She would be good for him. She was kind and passionate and very much like him. They would be good together. They were much closer now that the team was living in New York City. Julio should be with her, she was a real whole person, not a doll made to entertain.

“You okay, amigo?” Julio asked as they headed home. 

“Of course,” Shatterstar replied, why wouldn’t he be. Julio just looked at him, his head cocked to the side like he was trying to figure out some puzzle written on Shatterstar’s face. 

“Okay,” he frowned. “Well, what do you say we go see a movie, I think that one about the Howling Commandos came out last week?” 

“I think Tabitha called the TV already.”

Julio grabbed his arm suddenly, “Oh, ‘Star, have we not taken you to a movie theater?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

A slow grin spread across Julio’s face. “You’re going to love it.”

The movie theater reminded him of the Arena, even more so than the ballet had. It was a big building with escalators that went up and up and up. Giant billboards outside announced the night’s entertainment in shining lights. Inside the audience gathered. They were loud and pushed each other around in the line to buy food. Shatterstar almost told Julio he wished to go home. 

Julio got a coke and a giant tub of popcorn. “It’s a part of the experience,” He explained without actually clearing up any of Shatterstar’s confusion. “If you’re going to the movies for the very first time you have to do it right.”

In their assigned room there was a big screen, just like the TV at home, but bigger. It wasn’t as loud or crowded as the hallway had been and there would be no one performing live on stage. It helped to remember that. The popcorn tasted stale and too salty. He said as much to Julio but that just made him laugh. 

“Yeah, it always is,” he said, tossing a kernel up and opening his mouth to catch it as it fell back to earth. “Open up,” he aimed a piece of popcorn at Shatterstar’s face. Shatterstar obeyed and the kernel bounced off his cheek. “You have to try and catch it too.” Julio instructed, aiming a second piece. He caught that one leaning to the left to make up for Julio’s poor aim. The salt coated his tongue and dried his mouth and the bubbling sugar water that Julio had gotten them did little to ease his thirst. Julio threw one up in the air for himself and then held one up for Shatterstar to catch.

The lights suddenly went out. Of course, they would be attacked now, when Shatterstar had been convinced to leave his swords at home. He reached for the knife he kept strapped to his leg when he felt Julio catch his hand, leaning close so his whole side was pressed against Shatterstar’s.

“It’s okay, that’s supposed to happen. Everything is fine,” He whispered and his breath brushed against Shatterstar’s neck.

The screen flickered to life and Julio pulled his hand back. Shatterstar was not disappointed. He did not want that from Julio. Julio could not want that from him. Julio was going to find a real person to be with. Someone who could hold his hand and come down off the high balcony and dance with him and all the other real boys and girls. Someone who was not built by a madman in a workshop, who was always destined to be left in a lifeless heap on the floor of the stage. 


	3. Sweet

Unlike the ballet and the movie theatre the liveshow did not get better. It was real, real in a way neither of the others had been. Unpredictable. It was a performance but there was no set action, no careful choreography. The band adjusted to the crowd, playing into their demands. It was exactly as Shatterstar remembered being. He tried to remember that here in this world, that was a choice. Here they were not fighting for their lives, whatever battle was advertised. They were just dancing. But the audience around him was so loud. They sang back to the band and threw themselves at each other and the stage in violent fits. 

And people kept touching him.

They bumped into him. They pulled him into the dance. They ran their hands all over him. He didn’t want to be touched by them. They were strangers and he did not trust them and Julio didn’t understand. Julio always understood. Julio made this world and this life make sense. He was supposed to understand. 

Shatterstar was relieved when they were pulled away to a mission if only so he did not have to try to explain why he didn’t want those people to touch him. Why he didn’t want that woman to touch him when he was not a stranger to the workings of his body the way Julio assumed him to be. He wished he was. He wished he was because his relations with Gringrave still felt like a shameful weakness. He wished he was so that he might be capable of being with Julio. If love and sex had not been part of his act perhaps it could have been something like hiphop and spicy food. It could have been something Julio could introduce him to and they could have together. It was no good to wish for things that could not be. 

The world might have ended during their mission. Shatterstar was unsure as he was not been present for that but there was a certain feel in the air when the world was remade. It was a little fresher and brighter, like things hadn’t quite settled into their old familiar haunts yet. 

“Want to go get something to eat?” Julio pulled him aside and asked as the team drifted towards their own rooms.

“I don’t need sustenance at this time.” 

“Yeah, I was thinking more like ice cream or something. Not like real food. Maybe we could talk?”

“Okay.”

They took the subway to the end of the line. It was a long way to go for ice cream, which was available both in their fridge and at every stop they had let pass, but Shatterstar didn’t point that out. He liked these times with Julio, when things were quiet. He was not looking forward to talking more. They got off the train just as the sun started to rise, painting the sky a soft blue before the yellows and reds started to color the world and dye the ocean in its image. They found one ice cream place open and it only served vanilla or chocolate swirled around in a little cone that felt like paper. Julio took the chocolate flavored one and handed the vanilla to Shatterstar. His tongue darted out to lick around the edge of the cream. Shatterstar mimicked his motions, catching a big scoop of vanilla cream on his tongue and knocking the rest of it off the precarious perch of cone and onto the wooden deck. Julio laughed at him and took the cone out his hand chucking towards a crowd of birds down on the sand. 

He went back into the shop and returned with another cone.

“You have to be gentle with these things. Don’t push, just lick.” 

Shatterstar tried again and well the giant swirl of cream did wobble a little, it stayed planted. 

“See, easy,” Julio said, sitting down on the bottom step. “Are you okay?” Julio asked, shuffling his feet and looking away. “You know, with what happened earlier, and with what happened with Bobby?”

“I was given to understand evil future versions of oneself were normal occurrences among our kind.”

Julio shook his head, “You’ve had a weird life.”

“Yes, have I ever told you about the battle with the very small version of the X-men?”

“No. I...I probably really want to hear that story actually, but maybe later?”

“Alright.”

“And what about earlier? The night club and what we talked about? Are you okay with that?”

Shatterstar shrugged as he had seen Sam do when he was avoiding giving a direct answer. It had annoyed Shatterstar but he understood now that it was the correct response when the answer was too complicated to explain. 

“That stuff I told you about me, don’t tell anyone else, okay?”

“Of course. It is a secret matter between us.”

Julio nodded. “And don’t worry about, like, that stuff. You’re, you know, really attractive, so when you’re ready or you meet a girl you like or whatever, it’ll probably just happen or something.”

“I like you,” Shatterstar admitted, in the new morning of what was probably a new world.

“Well, yeah. We’re buddies. It’ll be different with a girl,” Julio assured him, digging his toes into the sand. “It’s going to be different,” he said again, almost to himself.

Shatterstar was unsure of the veracity of that statement. Though the things he wanted and had done with Gringrave are not quite the same as the things he wanted with Julio. He wanted to hold Julio's hand. He wanted to see Julio’s smile. He wanted to sit here next to him, just this close, forever. He had wanted pleasure from Gringrave. He had wanted an escape. He had wanted to connect to someone. He had wanted to feel real the only way he’d been able to then.

He felt real here. Julio had always made him feel real. 

The ice cream dripped down onto the back of his hand. It was cold and sticky and Shatterstar wasn’t entirely sure what to do about it. 

“You just lick it up,” Julio laughed when he noticed Shatterstar staring at the white streak down his hand. “Here see.” He lifted his own hand and ran his tongue along the side of his thumb where a little bit of chocolate had slipped off the side of the cone. Shatterstar attempts to lick his own hand but can’t quite twist his head around without almost tipping the cone over and losing the ice cream again. Julio catches it with the tip of his own cone and the brown and white cream mushes together where they touch. 


	4. Sour

“Will you come to a show with me?” Julio asked once they had settled into a room in a mansion in Westchester. It was sprawling and unlike anywhere Shatterstar had ever lived before. The room they had given him had dark wood floors laid in thin strips and a soft rug between the bed with a wood frame and a thick soft mattress and the wooden dresser. The window looked out on a grove of trees. It was made of glass that did little to insulate against the cold or reduce the heat. It was an uncomfortably nice room. Even the bed was uncomfortably soft and the sheets and blankets uncomfortably smooth. 

“It’ll be different this time. I promise. More low-key. I just need to get out of here man. I can’t-there’s a reason I left you know and I’ll get used to it again, it’s just-yeah.” Julio bounced on his toes as he spoke. 

“Sure,” Shatterstar agreed because Julio had this nervous energy about him like if he didn’t do something he’d shake apart. Shatterstar would do anything he needed. He did not want to go to another liveshow. He did not like it and he did not believe Julio that it would be better this time. He went anyway because Julio needed this and because Shatterstar would also like to find a reason to not be here in this house with its casual comforts. 

“Cool,” Julio nodded. “I’ll take care of you this time. Promise.”

The place where the show was happening was, as Julio said, more low-key. The room was smaller and the lights didn't flash around like the spotlights and pyrotechnics of Mojoworld. There were just the lights on the stage illuminating the band. There were people gathered in front and they were dancing and shoving into each other as before but Julio did not move towards them this time. He found a table near the back and instructed Shatterstar to stay while he got them drinks. He returned with a bottle of Tequila and two women. 

“Hey, these girls were looking for a place to sit out of the way and they bought us a bottle if we’d let them join us?” 

Shatterstar nodded his agreement. They looked like Callisto. They’re hair was colored brightly and unnaturally for humans and their shirts were the same torn black style that Julio favors. He didn't want them to join. Julio was different around other people--even the team--but strangers were the worst. He carried a tension across his shoulders when people besides Shatterstar were around. It was like he saw everyone as a possible enemy. It made Shatterstar uneasy as well, waiting for the attack. But mostly he did not like it because he liked when Julio was comfortable, when he was relaxed and happy. He could not be that around strange women.

Julio poured out the amber liquid into the small glasses provided for them.

“Has anyone taught you how to take a shot?” Julio asked him but his eyes kept darting towards the girls who were giggling at each other and glancing at Shatterstar.

“No.” 

“Okay, so first you start with the salt,” Julio explained, licking the back of his hand and shaking out a line of salt from the shaker on the table over it. He passed the shaker to the girls with a smile that looked like it belonged on Bobby’s face instead of Julio’s. The girls copied his motions. The one next to him licked across the inside of her wrist, eyes half lidded and staring at him. She reminded him of Gringrave in that moment. His own hand tasted a bit like the soap from the mansion and the salt itched as it dried to his skin. 

“The next part goes fast. You lick the salt off, take the shot all in one go and then eat a slice of lime.” Julio handed out wedges of lime, winking at the girl across from him as he did. “I’ll go first, then you try.” 

Shatterstar watched the way Julio’s tongue flattened along the back of his hand. He watched the way his throat worked as he tipped his head back and swallowed the amber shot. And he watched the way Julio’s lips curled around the lime. He watched the girls as they did their shots, clinking their glasses together.

He did his best to imitate Julio’s movements, hoping as he tilted his head back that Julio was watching him as closely as the girls were. The lime burst between his teeth and the sour juice coated his teeth. He wanted to lick the flavor out of Julio’s mouth. The intensity of the thought surprised him. He was aware, he had _been_ aware, of how he desired Julio. He had thought it was controlled. 

Throughout the night the girls drifted back and forth between the table and the dance floor and sometimes Julio went with them but he always interceded when they tried to pull Shatterstar out with them. It was not a good or fun night, but it was better than the last time and Julio had kept his promise. The band was putting away their instruments and Julio was pouring the last round of shots from the second bottle the girls had bought. Julio and the girls were falling over themselves as they laughed and slipped against the table. Shatterstar could never be so clumsy but he felt perhaps the room might begin to spin should he try and walk. 

“You should teach your friend to do body shots,” the girl who had been eyeing him all night giggled. 

Julio shakes his head. “‘Shatty doesn’t like touching people. But we can demonstrate,” he offers. 

“Okay,” the other girl said, holding her hand out to Julio. He took it and turned it over, sucking a wet spot on the inside of her wrist far longer than was necessary simply to make it wet. He poured the salt over the wet spot and she placed the little cup between her breasts and bit down on the outside of the lime. 

Julio licked away the salt in a far slower move than he’d done on his own hand. He wrapped his lips around the cup between her breasts, practically climbing into her lap to do so and finally pressed his mouth to hers to take the lime from her lips. Shatterstar licked his lips watching them. 

Julio was still very drunk when they made it back to the mansion. Shatterstar was not entirely sober either. He was processing the poison he had willingly drunk quicker but it still buzzed in his head and left a humming feeling under his skin. It told him Julio’s skin was warm and he should be touching more of it. So he leaned against him on the bus, pushing their bodies together until they got to the stop closest to home. Julio’s hand curled around his neck and awkwardly petted his hair, twisting it around his fingers the whole ride. 

They mostly walked and a little stumbled down the too long drive towards the doors. Shatterstar kept his hands around Julio’s waist and if it slipped under the shirt to press against the soft warm skin of his hips Julio didn't seem to mind. Julio pulled him to the side before they reached the giant wooden doors. He drew him around the back to the small kitchen door. The light inside was still on, but the room was empty. 

“We should have water before we go upstairs,” Julio said, dropping into one of the chairs, but he made no other move. Shatterstar pulled down two plastic cups and filled them from the sink.

“You should have let them do body shots with you,” Julio giggled. “The one totally wanted you. I know you don’t want that like right now with a stranger, but like she was pretty hot.”

“Yes they were both aesthetically pleasing to look at. I enjoyed their style. It was very similar to yours.”

“Did you want to? Sorry if I cockblocked you man, I thought after last time you wouldn’t be down with, like, sticking your face in her boobs.” Julio looked genuinely sorry. 

“I did not want to do that with them.” Shatterstar corrected, he did want to be forced to find a way to navigate such a situation on his own next time. But the tequila in his blood is still whispering to him about the warmth of Julio’s skin and how his tongue had pressed against the girl’s wrist. "I would like to try it with you.”

Julio blinked. “I don’t have boobs.”

“I know. But we could try the rest of it?” Shatterstar requested.

Julio buried his face in his arms and laughed for a minute. It didn’t seem like a pleasant laugh and Shatterstar did not understand what was funny. “Fuck it, yeah, sure. Let’s do body shots.” 

They didn’t have any limes so Shatterstar cut open a lemon and filled a novelty shot glass with water.. 

“This is so dumb,” Julio shook his head but took the lemon from Shatterstar and held out his hand. Shatterstar remembered how Julio had taken the girl's hand. He found the same spot of sensitive skin on the inside Julio wrist, sucking against it and when the humming tequila voice told him to bite he obeyed. There was a sharp intake of breath from Julio as his teeth scraped against Julio’s wrist. 

He sprinkled salt on the wet skin and brought the hand back to his lips. He remembered that Julio had just licked the second time but he couldn’t stop himself sucking again and biting at the skin just to hear the little noise Julio tried to suppress. He drank his shot of water quickly eager to get to the next part. The lemon was far more sour than the limes had been. It filled his mouth and made his eyes water but he didn't care because he could feel the brush of Julio’s lips against his as he pulled the fruit out of his mouth. 

“Fuck.” Julio whispered. “Fuck it.” he surged up after Shatterstar, pressed their lips together and his teeth tasted of tequila and lime and the sour lemon still flooded Shatterstar’s taste buds and he never ever wanted it to stop. Just as quickly Julio’s lips were gone.

“I-sorry, sorry. I-I think it’s time for me to go to bed.” Julio slid out of the chair and stumbled up the stairs leaving Shatterstar to clean up the cups and lemon slice, which had fallen forgotten onto the floor between them.

Julio slept late the next morning and complained about a headache as he carefully sipped coffee out a giant ceramic mug. He didn’t mention how the night ended. Instead he yelled at Cable, stormed up to his room and started throwing things into a duffle bag. 

“Julio-” Shatterstar lingered in the doorway unsure of what to say.

“I can’t be here, ‘Star. Not with him, not with-I just--I can’t. I shouldn’t have come back.” Julio ran a hand through his hair and avoided Shatterstar’s gaze.

“But I need you here,” Shatterstar protested.

“No you don’t.” Julio shoved his shirts into a ball. “You really really don’t.” He finally looked up and for a moment his face softened. “You’ll be fine okay. I’ll tell Terry to keep an eye on you.”

“But what about last night, when we-” Shatterstar started to ask.

“That was a mistake. I shouldn’t have...you...I’m confusing you.” Julio turned back to his packing. “You don’t really have many friends and you just like transferring these feelings on the person you trust and I took advantage of that last night. But it won’t happen again and eventually you’ll feel comfortable enough around other people, around girls, and realize that you don’t want that with me.”

“But I do.” Shatterstar stepped into the room. “I have done these things with girls before it. I liked kissing you. I wanted to continue.” He reached towards Julio. But Julio just stepped back out of the reach of his hands.

“I have to go,” he said again and nothing Shatterstar said over the next few days convinced him to stay. 


	5. Bitter

As he had promised Julio asked Terry to watch over him, but she was not Julio. She was kind and patient with him when he did understand something but she did not share herself with him the way Julio had. She did not tell him what movies they need to watch or go through an entire collection of Wu-Tang Clan albums explaining all the references he had no context for. Sometimes she sat in the rec room reading a book she’d found in the library while he watched TV. 

There was nothing to fill Shatterstar’s days except training and TV. Julio had slid into his life and slowly taken up so much space that Shatterstar had not noticed it until he was gone and Shatterstar was alone again. It felt much worse now than it had back then. He was suddenly keenly aware of being lonely. He had not known how to identify that feeling in himself before. It had just been the way he alway felt. 

Without Julio things started to fall apart. It was as if without Julio to be his center Shatterstar no longer knew who he was. His very identity became muddled. Memories that weren’t his try to crowd out who he thought himself to be. 

Then Julio came back. Shatterstar wasn't magically himself again, but he was more sure of the memories he did have with Julio there to verify them. 

In the aftermath of everything they didn’t talk about him leaving or about what happened before. They talked about Mexico and they talked about Benjamin Russel. They talked about TV and music. They talked about nothing and the questions sat like bricks on Shatterstar’s chest. He did not know if he was supposed to bring it up or never mention it again. He didn’t know what Julio wanted. Since his return Julio alway kept a careful space between them. It was empty and cold. Shatterstar had not noticed how often and casually Julio would touch him until he didn’t anymore. 

Julio watched TV with him in the evening again and shared new music he discovered well he was home. He filled up Shatterstar’s days with his presence again. 

“There are some things I left unfinished back home,” Julio brought up when the movie about the wooden boy they were watching goes to commercial. “But I-”

“Please don’t leave me again,” Shatterstar cut in. He could not bear it again. He could not be so lonely, he could not lose himself like that again and survive. Benjamin Russel still rattled around his mind. He filled Shatterstar’s dreams with almost memories of places he had never been. 

“No.” Julio shook his head. “I was gonna say, maybe you’d want to come with me this time? I think you should maybe get away from this stuff for a little too.”

“Yes.” Shatterstar’s answer was immediate. He would go anywhere with Julio.

“It’s kind of a long drive, but I was thinking it’d be better to have a car down there, and you could take your swords.”

“Yes, that sounds wise,” Shatterstar agreed. “I must have my swords.”

“I know.” Julio smiled at him. “I can teach you to drive if you need.”

“I will be fine to drive.”

“Cool. How soon will it take for you to be ready to go?”

“Anytime,” Shatterstar answered honestly. He had been on earth for nearly a year but he still did not own many things. It would not take long for him to place everything he owned in a bag. Perhaps an hour at most.

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

Julio came to find him early in the morning. “Grab a few pillows. We’re going to want them.”

So Shatterstar did though he was pretty sure they were not his pillows to take. 

They drove all day, stopping only to get food and gas for the clunking pick up truck Julio had acquired. They only made it as far as Virginia that first day. The landscape did not change much. The mountains perhaps grew a little larger and the trees a little leafier, but otherwise it was very much the same type of forest as they had begun their trip in. They found an empty campsite when the sun started to set. Julio made a fire and Shatterstar cooked potatoes wrapped in foil the way Sam had shown him back when they lived in Arizona. Shatterstar had never liked any of their subsequent homes as much as he had liked Arizona. 

They got ready for bed together, brushing their teeth with fingers and cheap toothpaste that tasted of nothing but baking soda and fluoride. They stripped down to shorts. It was still close to the end of summer and the air was too thick and hot to wear much else. Julio had piled blankets and the pillows he’d asked Shatterstar to take in the bed of the truck and they lay together in the soft lumpy pile watching the stars make their slow way across the sky.

“Julio?”

“Yes?”

“When you left, was it my fault?” Shatterstar asked the question that had plagued him since Julio had gone.

Julio did not say anything for a minute. “No.” He finally answered. “I mean, what happened that night, that was part of it, but it wasn’t all of it and it wasn’t your fault.”

“Did you not like it?”

Julio was quiet again and Shatterstar thought perhaps he had fallen asleep. “It’s complicated,” He said eventually. 

“Is it okay that I liked it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can we-can I kiss you again?” Shatterstar turned away from the sky to look at Julio. Juilo was looking at him, lower lip caught between his teeth. He reached out to run his fingers through a strand of Shatterstar’s hair.

“Yeah, I-I want that.”

Shatterstar shifts closer and kisses him and his mouth tastes like the toothpaste, bitter and clean.


End file.
